Archive for the ‘Family and Friends’ Category

Thanksgiving Dinner

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Today was the first time I’ve ever hosted a family Thanksgiving feast. It went better than I expected, except now that it’s over I’m exhausted, sore, and am coming down with the crud. Or, as some would call it, “The ‘itis”.

Quick recap of injuries I’m still trying to recover from: mid thoracic sprain, gout, plantar fasciitis, and a strained right quad. The real killer is the sprained back, which I think is the root cause of everything else bad that’s happening to me. It’s preventing me from doing regular exercise because it hurts when I breathe deeply. I’ve been doing physical therapy for the last month, but all they’ve managed to do for me is to make it hurt worse.

Bird Mite Infestation

Monday, September 19th, 2011

Bird Mite Infestation.

A friend of mine is currently battling a bird mite infestation. It’s a horrifying experience. The medical establishment is not well equipped to deal with such an infestation, and many doctors don’t even imagine that bird mites can live off of a human or a pet.

They can!

The CDC is investigating strains of drug-resistant bird mites growing in California. It’s truly frightening. Bird mites are tiny (up to 0.5mm) and translucent, making them almost impossible to see without magnification. They’re most active at night, burrowing into skin and invading the nose, mouth, sinuses, and even the urethra.

So don’t let birds nest anywhere near your house. When disposing of abandoned bird nests, wear gloves and long sleeves. A dusting of borax wouldn’t hurt either.

If you do find yourself host to bird mites, you’re in for a fight. They’re hard to kill, they infest everything around you, and they go nuts on you at night, making sleep difficult. You’ll have to clean everything every day, fumigate your house, treat your pets, shower twice per day, change your diet, and invest in a variety of exotic cleaning supplies just to manage the infestation.

There is no cure.

Don’t you feel itchy?

return of the feminine

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Well, it’s finally happened – my wife and daughter returned from Nepal after a 3 month vacation. They’re epically failing to adjust to the local daylight schedule, having slept through most of their first 3 days back. It seems there’s rarely an hour of daylight in which all of us are awake. The trip has turned my whole family into extreme night owls!

STRESS!

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I just had the most stressful day I can remember since leaving the navy.

Yesterday we put in an offer on a house in Thousand Oaks. Nice neighborhood, clean house in good repair with an awesome floor plan. We underbid by $29k but I bet we could have gone lower. Anyway, we’ve got a clause in the offer stating that if the house appraises for under the offer price, we’ll buy it for the appraisal value. Nice, huh?

Anyway, Sangeeta’s been really nervous about the whole house buying process, and I hate to admit that it’s starting to affect me. I spent the day second guessing myself and wondering if I did right.

So I spent the morning scrambling to gather and send paperwork for loans and such. I was supposed to get it all in by 10:30am. I got the first wave in by then. Supplements followed until noon.

Then I found out that my domain name had expired. mizerai.com was off the Internet. Crap, something else to rush and fix.

Everett went on vacation today, leaving an experiment with a buggy program. Phil asked if someone could take a look and see about fixing it. Uh, yeah, I guess he meant me. That makes three concurrent projects, plus the real estate situation.

On the way to the lab I narrowly avoided two accidents. First, an old lady crashed her car into another car, then careened through a fire hydrant and into a wall/tree. Water was shooting higher than the buildings on the street. I was in the parking lot behind the wall.

Then at UCLA I pushed a pedestrian with my car. He was cutting in front of me so he wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the intersection/crosswalk to cross the street. Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t expecting that and didn’t see him until I had threatened to run him over. He warded off my bumper with his hands, and gave my mouthed apology a couple of over the shoulder dirty looks.

By this point, the adrenaline had gone sour in my blood, and I was shaky. I got to the lab and found out I’d be lunching by myself, and then heading over to a meeting by myself. Who would think that a business meeting with two attractive women would be stressful? Well, now I know. At least the meeting went well.

On the way to the meeting, Jerry called me from Krav Maga Worldwide about my introductory lesson scheduled for tonight. Well, my wrist is still giving me shocks of pain occasionally (hockey injury from last week), but Jerry said we could just tape it up if it was a problem. Oh, and I should wear something I wouldn’t mind getting sweaty. Great. My gym clothes were still at home. I left after the meeting.

Once home, it all crashed down on me. I canceled the lesson and just laid down for an hour. I’m now struggling to stay up until 9pm. I made it through okay but now I feel like I’ve been beaten down. Hope it’s not as hot tonight, so we can all get some good sleep!

Thursdays

Thursday, July 16th, 2009

“I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” — Arthur P. Dent

Does it really take 21 days to create a habit?

I’m cooking chili. Just got a call from my boss, telling me we just got 99.9% certain funding from the US Army for a medical training program. Almost ready to shampoo my living room carpet.

I think I’m finally starting to settle into the single life. It’s been really rough, since I’m used to having my adorable wife and daughter keeping me company all the time, but I’m adaptable and I’m adapting. Sure I’m still lonesome a lot, but I’m having an easier time dealing with it lately. At least until it gets dark and quiet, and the screen savers start showing me slideshows of family pictures…

Rotten

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Last night was my first and last D&D night in a very long time. Rob, Greg, and I headed out to Kagel Cyn. to hang out at John’s place and do some gaming. Traffic was awful, so Rob and I had plenty of time to talk on the way out.

At John’s place we got to see all the progress he’s made toward getting the place fixed up. He’s been living there for years, and his family has done a ton of work to take the building from a dilapidated piece of crap to a skeleton with furniture. It’s shaping up to be a really nice place, once they finish installing the fixtures like kitchen countertop and sink. Oh, and stair railings. It made me worry about Saranya falling down stairs, and she’s on the other side of the freakin’ planet.

D&D was fun but I wasn’t very into it. Rob wasn’t either, and he was DM. That lent a “yeah whatever” feel to the happenings. Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit. That’s an unhappy thought.

We got home by midnight. I crashed and got up this morning with the usual sinus congestion, but also with an ugly rotten feeling that I just can’t explain. I think it’s called “depression” and it seems a stretch to tie it to anything that’s going on in my life right now. Sure, my wife and daughter are going to be gone for at least 2 more weeks. Sure I’ve got a project deadline that falls just after they come back. Sure I’ve got an apartment that is not yet halfway cleaned even after 2 solid weeks of daily effort.

Hmm, now that I think about it, maybe all this stuff is just adding up to be overwhelming. Yesterday I felt fine, though. Today I feel like shit. Maybe it’s just one of those things.

Thursday

Friday, July 10th, 2009

I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

Sangeeta called Wednesday night, and spent the whole time telling me about how big a dirtbag her uncle and his kids are.

Then I was surprised to find that I had slept all night long. Luckily I had already brushed my teeth.

Thursday night – same story. Crashed at 9:30pm and awoke just before 5am. Odd…

biurnal

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

I was up until 5am, working and cleaning. Exercising and studying. Packing.

I got the basic multiple choice problem movie working and looking nice. It shows a wrist x-ray and asks you to classify it into one of four categories. After you pick, it tells you if you were accurate or not, and shows the relevant information on the x-ray.

I put all of Saranya’s toys into her crib, since she’s not using any of them this month and I need to get to the carpet to clean it.

My insecticidal rampage continued but at a decreasing rate. I had myself a literal bug hunt.

Having more space around me feels really good. All those toys were making the living room feel very cramped and small. Now it’s a wide open room, and it makes me feel free somehow. Now if only the carpet weren’t so filthy. That’s going to happen this weekend.

I haven’t heard from Sangeeta this week. I hope they’re doing alright. Since Milan left for Subash’s wedding, she probably doesn’t have access to Internet until he gets back. I really miss them. 3 more weeks…

I’m sleeping twice per day. I get an evening nap for 2 or 3 hours, then I work until the sun comes up before sleeping again until late morning. I get tons of work done at night, but very little done during the day.

Karaoke

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009

On Monday night, our lab went to Everett’s new apartment in K-town for Mr. Pizza. Joel regaled us with tales of his adventure in Ibiza, and then we all walked over to a Korean karaoke establishment. It was much fun! I had 1 glass of beer the whole night, and then drove people home safely. I got home and crashed at about 3am.

Tuesday morning I woke up at 7am, expecting a possible call from Nepal. The call didn’t happen, so I tried to go back to sleep. I was very uncomfortable and finally decided it just wasn’t working and I should get up and get coffee, but when I looked at the clock it was 9am. I’d slept 2 hours and didn’t even notice.

Tuesday evening I got home from work around 8pm with a few groceries I’d picked up on the way home. While putting them away, I spotted a cockroach on my refrigerator. Immediately I went into cleaning mode, cleared all the bags and boxes and plates and trays from the top of the refrigerator, and wiped the whole thing down with a hot soapy rag. It actually cleaned up pretty well, but while I was washing some of the big plates we’d stored up there, I turned and saw that I’d disturbed some more cockroaches. Even as tired and as hungry as I was, I was more angry that these little bastards were invading my living space, and I was determined to exterminate them all. I even tried to move the old refrigerator to clean behind it, until I started worrying that it might break.

Anyway, after all that effort I went to bed with one more clean area in the kitchen, and creepy crawlies in my head. I laid awake for 3 hours in the dark before my consciousness time traveled to morning. 5am. Allergies had kicked in. Coffee. World of Warcraft for my jc daily quest. Then some mindless travel while reading the news on the web, drinking coffee, and generally being a zombie. By about 10am I was again tired and went down for another shot at sleep. This time the dreams came almost immediately, and I knew I was dreaming because Saranya jumped on my back and tried to poke me in the eye like she often does, while Sangeeta yelled from the other room telling Saranya to leave me alone. I thought “oh, this must be a dream” and then it changed into something less memorable. After an hour of REM sleep though, I feel much much better.

Safe Arrival

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

I woke up at 6:30am to the sound of the phone ringing. Actually my first memory was when I actually saw the phone in the next room, but I was expecting the call. I needed the call. Sleep had been elusive yet I jettisoned it in seconds.

Then the phone stopped ringing. Oh. No!

Whew! It rang again! “Hello?”

It was Sangeeta! They made it safely to her father’s house in Kathmandu, and Saranya was finally sleeping. Apparently Sangeeta’s fears of bad behavior proved unfounded, as several other passengers complimented Saranya on her exemplary behavior during the long trip. She only fussed a couple times because of the difficulty of sleeping on the plane.

What a huge relief! I had been worried in the general sense of having no information and no control. I was up at 1:30am and checking the time in Nepal, thinking surely they’d landed by now. Anything to keep the darkness and solitude at bay, and to keep my mind from enumerating the possible disasters which could have befallen my loved ones.

Now I can rest easy. Well, maybe…